Affairs of History and State

Yeah, folks, this one is a doozy. The problem is, it really shouldn’t be. But the human trend of being overly emotional, irrational, and just plain nuts rules the day on Planet Earth, and so we have this fracas that, as Marc Barnes so eloquently put it, has all the sense and reason of a Snorlax who just snorted his weight in high quality crack cocaine (Note: They weigh about 1,000 Ilbs).

Which is to say, NONE.

RESPECT MY OPINIONS, YOU BIGOT!!!

With the recent reviewing of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8 by the Supreme Court, and the surrounding media mess, I figure that it might as well be time to put up my thoughts on the entire situation, from same-sex marriage itself to the origins of homosexuality.

See, I happen to think that this whole “Gay” movement has only gotten as far as it has due to misinformation, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and general falsehood, intentionally or unintentionally pursued and promoted by either side of the debate. Well, that and a toxic mix of hypercharged fear and misplaced compassion.

So now that I am dropping this multi-megaton bomb on y’all, I might as well lay out how I intend to go about it. My position, and the subject itself, is far too nuanced and complex to cover in a single post without addling the brain. Because of this, I will be covering it in many, many parts.

Part 1: The Big Gay Dance-Introducing the Gay Rights movement and why they have the power they have. Part of this is the Opposition’s fault.

Part 2: In Which I Rip the APA and Kinsey a New One- You know, for being scientifically unprofessional and intellectually inconsistent. Because, you know, they were just enlightened and so far ahead of the rest of us…

Part 3: You Sold Me Queer Giraffes-Dealing with homosexuality in the Animal Kingdom and how it pertains to the debate.

Part 4: Starscream, Shine on You Crazy Diamond-Breaking down homosexuality into its base components. Also, pertaining analysis of the transgender issue.

Part 5: Putting Together the Rainbow-Final thoughts and a conclusive message on where we should go from here.

I reserve the right to extend various parts into multiple posts if I have to. Get ready, because it has begun!

I also reserve the right to interrupt this flow with anything I find cool enough to write about. ‘Cause it’s my blog.

It really, really is. It is one of the greatest travesties of the Modern Age.

Wait, you thought I was complaining about racism or sexism or homophobia or something like that?

How wrong you were….

I think the entire concept of Hate Crime is ludicrous and in direct violation of the First Ammendment. I’ll prepare my battlements for the undeniably massive wave of angry partisans bearing torches and machetes that now comes to claim my life and sanity.

But still, there, I said it, and I feel better.

Why do I hate the concept of Hate Crime? How could anyone who loves diversity and tolerance hate Hate Crime?

Well, firstly, the fact that I can appreciate diverse worldviews, cultures, and lifestyles has nothing to do with this. Neither does the fact that I can tolerate the existence of behavior or schools of thought I find obscene or worthy of ridicule.

I hate Hate Crime because it is entirely unnecessary and punishes a man further than he has already been punished based upon his beliefs. I do not care if those beliefs include a raging hatred of Catholics, Europeans, people with brown eyes, or any other thing that I am or believe in. People have the right to hold those beliefs and preach them to the multitudes. It makes no difference whether a man assaults me because he does not like my face, or if he harms my person because I am partially Irish or German. The law already punishes the crime of assault, but with Hate Crime, it punishes the ideology of the criminal as well. Therefore, it gives the state a sudden power over what I can and cannot believe. It also opens up a giant can of worms as to what specifically constitutes a Hate Crime, and takes things to a near-1984 level of police work.

Doubtless, many of you reading this will scream “But what of the poor African Americans and Hispanics and Homosexuals and Jews and Muslims and and and and and…? Who will protect them from bigotry-induced violence?”

As already mentioned, the law actually covers threats of all varieties, harassment, physical abuse, assault, robbery, vandalism, and pretty much every way you can harm a human being. The perpetrator will be punished regardless of motive, so why add the extra punishment due to his motive? It is folly. I am perfectly fine with letting down this so-called extra protection against people like Neo-Nazis, Radical Islamists, and the KKK, all of which HATE Catholics and have a history of violence against them. Any of them can come after me and, once they have dealt with my response, which will be very not-fun for them, they will deal with the entirely effective laws already in place.

There you have it, America. Get rid of Hate Crime. It is irrational and wrong-headed.

I’m going to do something new, dear readers. I am aware that you are small in number, and because of this, I have a favor to ask. I think what I am about to say is critical to the state our great country is in. Therefore, I will ask that you share this in every way possible, by Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, and Tumblr. I am asking you to do your best to make this next post viral. So many are unaware of what exactly is being done by certain men and women that their ignorance has become as a powder keg ready to ignite.

Now, to the alarum bell!

The HHS Mandate is a very foul and dangerous thing. Say what you wish about the overall Obamacare Plan; it is not the issue here. Many on either side of the political spectrum will attempt to make it seem as if it were. Some have even accused the U.S. Council of Bishops of despising Universal Healthcare. This is blatantly not so, they have been for the welfare and care of all peoples, however disadvantaged, for quite some time now, if there was ever even a time they were not. In fact, many are like myself, who oppose the Mandate, but not the idea that all men should be cared for and looked after when ill or injured. We oppose this loathsome Mandate because of one reason: it forces people to act against their religious beliefs in a drastic and harmful way. Namely, it threatens any institution that holds Christian (and Islamic and Jewish and occasionally Buddhist and Hindu) pro-life values and is not exclusively run for and by members of that same religion. It hammers them with large financial penalties if they do not grievously violate their own religious tenets. Basically, it forces the organization to pay for sterilizations, birth control pills (abortifacient), morning-after pills (distinctly abortifacient) and other such things. It forces the Catholic Church, among others, to pay for the murder of children and the degradation of human beings made in the image and likeness of God.

Naturally, this is intolerable to many in this country. “I’m sorry, you have deeply held religious beliefs about the sanctity of sexuality and human life? Violate them or we run you into the ground with fines.” This applies to every school (pre-school through University level), hospital, and social work organization that is part of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. And, as I have said, many other churches besides. This act is an abomination, and devastates Religious Liberty by financially threatening us unless we violate our beliefs. To look at it from another angle, imagine if the Freedom from Religion Foundation were forced to pay for Religious Counseling as part of its insurance plans. This is madness enough, but our Dear and Doting President Barack Obama has taken advantage of this time and place in History to do something far more vile than what first appears, methinks.

Note well that the following is theory and hypothesis alone, and that I have no secret documents nor overheard conversations to fill out more than the framework of my discovery.

People of Faith are notoriously hard to deal with. Especially those of the Abrahamic variety, it would seem. The more you push us around, the more we fight back, and sometimes we fight in the most dangerous way possible. We Forgive and Love. We cling to the Lord, and even when slain we grow in number, for the Blood of Martyrs is truly the Seed of the Church, both Theologically and Sociologically. In truth, the only way to really beat us is through defamation, and that takes time and a great deal of exaggeration or lying, because it is hard to hate the nun feeding the armless leper soup. One has to focus entirely on the Evil done by members of the Faith, and ignore anything to the contrary. To beat Holy Men, you must make them look like demons.

The Catholic Church is currently a great thorn in the side of men like our President, and women like Nancy Pelosi or Kathleen Sebelius. How strange it is indeed that all three of them are members of Christian and Catholic Churches. Yes, you heard me right. We are under attack from within our own flocks. Yet, if you think about it, this really is not so strange…Peter denied Christ, Judas betrayed Him…we have a long and sinful history of not sticking to our guns or turning them on our brothers and sisters. But I digress. We of the Faith are a stumbling block on the road to their political goals. They are for gay marriage, abortion, and numerous other things that most of us are dramatically against. The number of people against these things comprise a vast portion of the votes that put men like Obama in power, and allow him to do as he sees fit.

So it comes down to this: WE are in the way, and they don’t like it. It would be far easier on them if all they tried to restructure or tear down with legislation was approved at lightning speed because America had suddenly become a mass of heads nodding politely in their direction.

You see, when this mess first broke, naturally the Church was outraged. When many of our members, including Bishops, came out in support of the Healthcare Bill, they did so thinking that our right to follow our conscience would be protected. So we complained. And the President told us to calm down and that we would forge a compromise that did not trample our Freedom. Cardinal Timothy Dolan met with him and was assured that this would be the case. Then, the compromise was unveiled for the press, and we found that we had been betrayed yet again. This compromise, was to protect our rights. Instead, it went as thus: as opposed to paying the cost of the procedures and pills we reject as sinful, we would pay the insurance companies, who would then pay the costs. “It’s okay. You don’t have to pay for murder. You just have to pay for someone else to pay for murder.” Of course, this is both insulting and laughable.
I would wager that the real point of this “compromise” was simply to make us look bad and crush any serious opposition to the Mandate. From that point on, our President got to look like he had tried to make peace, but those darned stodgy Bishops just refused to listen. This, of course, effectively hamstrings us in regards to public opinion. And, after all, that was never truly with us anyway, thanks to folks who spread around the lie that 98% of Catholic Women use contraception (skewed polls aside, it’s kind of common sense that more than 2% of Catholic women probably are too old to even need it), and others who shrieked like stuck pigs that we were attacking women’s health. I cannot tell you the number of sob stories I have seen involving endometriosis or some other disorder treatable by the Pill. Well, to clear the air, the Church is completely okay with you taking care of serious illnesses when the side effect mucks with your fertility. Because if we weren’t we would have to be against a fair number of cancer treatments as well.

Remember how I said there are certain things our leaders want done that the Church stands in the way of? This is where it gets ugly. We have three options now with the HHS Mandate

1) Comply. Act against our own beliefs in a horrendous manner.

2) Refuse to comply and continue to hold open our charities. We are then fined slowly to death or crippled to the point where we can do nothing.

3) Shut down. Which leaves us at the bleak point of #2.
Now, if we shut down or are forced to close, this is what will happen: all the people we served, all the needy, the children who need schooling, the sick who need healing, all of them are suddenly cut adrift in the economy. What better people to use as fodder for supporting Obamacare? Or any other expansion of Government aid our dear President might want to ram through the legislature? “See, America, I told you we needed my solutions to these problems! Look at all those who need what I propose!” And of course, few will think to ask where all these poor folk suddenly came from. America will simply panic under the further financial stress.

And if that is not devious enough for you, consider this. If Catholic Schools are closed, it will drastically reduce the number of children educated properly in the Faith. In a generation or two, the functional Catholic population will have dropped to near zero. And that stumbling block in the way of so many things that so many of our leaders desperately want to accomplish will have been effectively removed from the voting population. See, while we are not the largest Christian group in America, we are the most structured and organized. We are the most resistant to attack. And with us removed, the others will come crashing down like dominoes.

So there you have it. The HHS Mandate is doom to Religious Freedom. And it, I fear, is intended as a death blow to the enemies of those currently in power. Vote well this November. Remove this devious and underhanded man from office.